


Devil Child

by AndThatWasEnough



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Horror, Eldritch, Gen, Gore, New Jersey, SPN Eldritch Bang, Season/Series 14, jerseynatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27126785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndThatWasEnough/pseuds/AndThatWasEnough
Summary: Sam and Dean find themselves in Leeds Point, New Jersey, on a thin lead for the Jersey Devil.  The hunt in the Pine Barrens only brings them confusion, however, as they begin to unravel the story of a disgraced mother and her child, and the night that ruined them.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 11
Kudos: 14





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the SPN Eldritch Big Bang 2020, and I was lucky enough to work with the wonderful Cassiopeia7, who did absolutely AMAZING artwork for this story, and really helped bring it to life. You can find it [here](https://cassiopeia7.livejournal.com/627241.html).
> 
> Happy reading :)

The night Deborah Leeds’ thirteenth child was born, she lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling as her friends and the midwife hovered nearby, awaiting the arrival of this thirteenth accursed child of Japhet Leeds. Deborah had cursed the child herself when she had discovered the pregnancy; she had lifted her skirt over her head like a child as she sat on the floor and screamed into it, cursing this pregnancy and the man who had wrought it. Perhaps it was not so much a curse upon the child, then, but the circumstances, and the circumstances of its birth befitted Deborah’s attitude: blustery gusts of wind shook the shutters as rain came down in sheets just outside the window. Her husband had left the bedroom shortly after the night began, much like the night the child was conceived. Japhet was consistent, if nothing else.

If Deborah had known marrying Japhet Leeds would have meant giving birth to thirteen children, she would have disappeared into the Pine Barrens without a trace long ago.

 _This child will be the Devil_ , she remembered screaming to her husband. Japhet had not expected this reaction – children were blessings, after all, given to them by God. But Deborah could not stand any more blessings. The twelve previous blessings had stretched her out, made her breasts sag from the milk and the sucking, made whatever beauty and vitality she once had disappear, not to mention had destroyed her nether regions. Deborah was certain Japhet no longer took her in his bed because of her looks, but simply because he was a man with needs, and she was the first woman he saw when he woke in the morning, and the last one his gaze fell upon before he fell asleep at night. Gone were their courting days, when he looked at her as if she was the answer to every question he would ever have. Deborah had been lavished by his attention and adoring gaze…until the first child, and he saw her descend the staircase in a dress stained by her breastmilk. That had put out the fire in his eyes. She was now only a vessel for his seed, and that was the extent of it. Right now, the man was in another room with the other children, probably drinking while they slept. Japhet couldn’t support twelve children, and Deborah highly doubted that would change with the thirteenth.

Therefore: curse the child. And curse Japhet Leeds.

Thirteen was an unlucky number, after all. Number thirteen would bring her nothing but trouble. It would probably spend its nights caterwauling, its days eating and soiling everything in sight, and every spare moment tugging at her hair or dress or begging for her teat. The previous twelve had been no different – why should this one be? Deborah knew that however bad the others had been, this one would be worse, by tenfold. It stood to reason. And she would have no help, not even anyone to watch on as she thrashed and struggled. She would no longer be fit for consumption.

Thirteen was a _cursed_ number.

It seemed as if everyone Deborah knew had crowded into her bedroom in her stone house as if she were some sort of spectacle. They could all see how her legs were spread wide, how she sweat and squirmed and screamed. Aside from the midwife, most of them were sat around discussing the progression, but mostly gossiping, mostly about how that Franklin man had once again published in his almanac that her brother-in-law Titan would soon die. He never tired of that joke, and it seemed that no one else in the Province of New Jersey was going to any time soon, either. Meanwhile, the Leeds’ own almanac suffered.

Curse the Leeds.

Deborah had thought this to herself many a time over the years, especially as of late. She had married into a family of monsters, if you asked the people in town. Then they would duck their heads, whisper something, and laugh behind their hands. Everybody looked down on them after Daniel Leeds had started putting those esoteric writings in his almanac – the Quakers, the politicians, and the author of _Poor Richard’s Almanac_ himself. 

They said they were a family of devils, and considering the wyvern featured prominently on the family crest, Deborah found it hard not to agree with them.

“Oh, would you look at that. The child’s got a head.”

There’s laughter; Deborah emitted a low moan in response as the midwife prepared to catch the child. Deborah almost could not care less if the child had a head, she just wanted the damned thing _out_. Out, out, out! While her friends continued to prattle on in the background and stare at her like the prized pig she feels like, the midwife continued to coo and coax until there was a scream and a wet, writhing, pink-and-purple babe lying against her chest, and suddenly she was the most miraculous woman that there ever was. And it only took thirteen children for them to discover that.

Deborah didn’t know what to name him. As she sat and stared at the child while the midwife cleaned up, the two of them, mother and child, considered each other carefully. The baby had a sweet face, but he didn’t look like anybody – not a James, or a William, or a Daniel or a Japhet or a George. Deborah figured that a name would come in a few days’ time. 

“He’s a sweet thing, isn’t he?”

Deborah nodded slowly without looking up at the midwife. “Yes, I suppose he is.”

The child reached out a small, pudgy hand, and Deborah was helpless to not reach out to him and meet the baby halfway. He wrapped his hand around her finger, still watching her with those intense eyes. Deborah searched within herself, _desperately_ hoping to discover the love she was supposed to be feeling, but just not finding it. Seems that love she was supposed to feel came less and less quickly with each one. It wasn’t the child’s fault, Deborah knew that, but she could not force something that was not. Maybe it would hit her suddenly one day, as she was feeding him, or changing him, or putting him to bed. Maybe then. Maybe. The child whimpered.

“What’s this, then?”

The midwife came over and frowned down at the child, who was all of a sudden very upset. He writhed and squirmed, his face going red. The midwife knitted her brow together and leaned in closer. Deborah frowned. “What is it?”

Sliding a hand under the baby, the midwife saw a small red patch underneath his shoulder, and at first she thought it must just be that she missed something when she cleaned him off, so she reached into her apron to get something to wipe him down. However, upon further inspection, she noticed a tear in the skin. “He’s been cut.”

“Cut?” Deborah repeated, disbelieving. Already they were problems. She had known, hadn’t she? She _knew_ that this would be the case. Those Leeds men – nothing but trouble. “That can’t be possible. He’s been lying there this whole time, nothing sharp enough to cut has touched him.”

Oh, but something most certainly had. Something that could not be detected immediately by the human eye; something…much deeper than that. This mark on the soul was not something that the child could have helped – it had been thrust upon him, the circumstances forced upon the child without any consideration. This isn’t unusual; most people get stuck with greatness, or mediocrity, or – such as in the case of Baby Leeds – something far worse than either of those, far more sinister.

The child let out a horrific scream, his poor, wretched little body in the throes of a terrible transformation. Some of Deborah’s friends took a step forward to get a closer look at what was happening, but the smart ones took a step back from the scene. If any of them had known what was coming next, however, they all would have run from the Leeds estate, far away, the storm be damned.

The midwife put a hand to her heart. “Is that…?“

Wings. Shredding through the skin. Then hooves, sprouting from his hands and feet. Horns curling from his head. This was quickly followed by a long, barbed tail. The entire transformation was accompanied by the sounds of screams so piercing, so anguished, that Deborah felt as if the breath had been sucked from her lungs and had been used to breathe life into this…this _thing_ that had once been her thirteenth child. She could have sworn her ears were bleeding. The sight was so horrific that she hardly noticed the others around her; that is, until the poor, pitiful creature extended its trembling wings and took out its obvious ire on the unsuspecting midwife.

It all happened so quickly.

The creature tore out the midwife’s throat, killing her instantly, blood pooling underneath her and dripping from the thing’s horse-like teeth as the women screamed. Startled, the demon-spawn turned on its own mother with glowing red eyes, and as Deborah looked into those eyes, she knew the truth: she had well and truly given birth to a monster, born into this family of monsters, and she knew with certainty that it was somehow all her fault her child was suffering such a fate.

Deborah herself met her own fate moments later as her child lashed out and savagely attacked her, leaving her dead within moments.

The onlookers were too shocked to move. Deborah and the midwife lay in pools of their own blood, absolutely eviscerated by the creature Deborah had birthed. Like a child in the midst of a feverish tantrum, it shrieked and flew at the friends of Deborah and Japhet, and soon they, too, lay maimed across the floor – an arm here, a leg there, a few heads scalped – and once that was done, it burst into the next room, where Japhet was slumped in the corner while his children slept.

At the sound of the door, Japhet blinked himself awake, squinting at the large figure in the doorway. It was no man, that was for certain, and he could hear nothing – not the chatter of women, or the cry of a baby. He must have been dreaming, then. All he could make out of his nightmare was the silhouette of wings and the profile of a horse.

“And what’n the hell might you be?”

Japhet didn’t have time to find out, and once he, too, was dead, the monster – his child – escaped out the chimney and into the night.

From the window, one woman – finest dress stained with the blood of her friends – watched.


	2. Pine Barren Wasteland

Lebanon, Kansas to Absecon, New Jersey – a town about ten minutes outside their case in Leeds Point – was a twenty-two hour drive, and there was no denying anymore that Dean’s back (and arms, and legs, and just about every joint in his body) couldn’t handle the long-haul drives like it used to. So, upon arrival at their motel, he unfolded stiff fingers from the steering wheel and proceeded to gracelessly stumble out of the Impala. Sam – who had to fold himself up like origami every time he stepped foot inside a car – snorted from behind him and said,

“Three for the dismount. Afraid you just missed the podium, Mary Lou.”

Sam thought his precocious little brother act was cute, always had, and got a thrill out of annoying the ever-loving shit out of Dean in a way that he did no other. To be fair, Dean felt the same, but it was much too late for the bullshit right now. Both of them were tired, could feel it in the marrow of their bones, and if Dean didn’t get something to eat soon, blood would be shed – he was getting hangry. Maybe he should start keeping a better eye on his blood sugar. Oh, well.

“Go get a room,” he grunted, and Sam sauntered off to the main office of the Goldfinch Inn. 

The place was pretty typical, as far as motels went, and the Winchesters had long ago stopped bracing themselves when they let themselves into their room, having seen the worst of what America’s motor courts had to offer. The siding was white and the doors and shutters were goldenrod, the paint chipping in a few places, but the roof was intact and the vacancy sign was on, so they really couldn’t ask for more. Dean didn’t get why they were staying in Absecon instead of Leeds Point proper, but Sam had said something about not wanting to stay in a small unincorporated town, something about not wanting to draw attention. That was ridiculous; the case was in Leeds Point, not Absecon, and that’s where they should be staying. Hell – it was barely a case in the first place. Cas and Jack had called them from the road about a rash of sightings of the Jersey Devil – the Jersey Devil! Of all things, the Jersey Devil – out in its native Pine Barrens, and considering how excited Jack was about it, he almost told the two of them to go after the damned thing themselves, but Dean had taken one look at the stranger cooking in his kitchen and decided getting out and stretching his legs might not be such a bad idea.

So now here they were, in _beautiful_ South Jersey, following up on what was probably a bunch of bullshit.

The reason the case was a bunch of bullshit was because even if this thing was real, it hadn’t _done_ anything. Nobody was hurt, nobody was dead, but word had traveled by way of a massive game of hunter telephone that the cryptid had made its way back home. Thing is, they were just going by word of mouth; no hunter had seen hide nor hair of the monster, ever – at least, not any that Sam and Dean knew of, and they certainly hadn’t seen the sucker. Some things really were just urban myths, especially these cryptids everyone liked to go on about: Bigfoot, Jersey Devil, Mothman…it was sort of disappointing, sure, but that was the way of things. A person in this line of work saw things that most people couldn’t dream up in even their worst nightmares, but old-fashioned haunted houses, seances, horror movie-style monsters, famous ghosts…rarities, if they happened at all. Most of the work was gruesome, and that was that. 

But they would check it out. They always did.

“Hey.” Sam walked up, jangling room keys. “Room eleven. Diner’s attached and there’s a laundromat across the street. Hungry?”

Dean smeared a hand down his face. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Here – I’ll meet you in a sec. I’ll dump our stuff, go get a table.”

It was an old routine by now, familiar, almost comforting. Dean dropped their duffels on their beds, splashed some water on his face, and was about to head out when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and stopped short. He looked tired these days – he and Sam both did – and he was starting to get the sense that maybe, just maybe, he was starting to look…not old, exactly, but his age. Dean would never admit anything like that out loud, but after dragging ass from Kansas to Jersey, he could not only see it but _feel_ it. Some days, in moments he wouldn’t quite describe as dark but certainly disconcerting, and especially as he approached his fortieth birthday, Dean would wonder to himself just how much longer he would be able to do all of… _this_. Would there ever come a day where his body told him he had to stop before his brain did?

But that was a question for another day, for an older Dean, so he made his way to Violet’s, the diner the owners of the Goldfinch Inn also ran. True to its name, Violet’s was, well, violet. They were certainly running with their themes, here. Sam was certain he had never been in a diner with purple carpet before, but there was a first time for everything, and since it was clean, he didn’t care. Even the menus were purple. Consistency, after all, is key.

When he saw Dean, Sam waved him over, and Dean gratefully slumped into the booth opposite him. “Got you a water.” And indeed Sam had. He pointed to it.

“Coffee woulda been better.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome. And don’t you wanna sleep tonight? C’mon, Dean.” Sam certainly did. And he hadn’t been the one to drive that last excruciating leg, not that Dean would have likely let him, anyways.

“God, at this point, I could sleep through a hurricane.” But Dean dropped the subject. Water was fine. He could probably do with drinking more of it. It was apparently good for you, or something like that.

Their waitress was a nice older lady with wide birthing hips named Louise. She looked like the kind of woman who still dotted her ‘ _i’s’_ with hearts and put smiley faces on receipts. Louise apparently also worked at the Goldfinch Inn at the front desk sometimes, but she liked working the diner best. Got to talk to more people. Most people weren’t so chatty when they were asking for a room because they were so dog-tired, and Sam and Dean emphatically agreed.

“So what’s good?” Dean asked, but truth was, he was so hungry that just about everything on the menu looked good, purple font be damned.

“Well, I’m partial to the club sandwich, but we serve breakfast all hours, and if you ask me, you can’t go wrong with breakfast food.”

“Here, here,” Dean agreed. So that’s what they went for, and Louise bustled off to the kitchen with their orders.

Dean shook around the ice in his glass. “Ya know, I feel pretty stupid, goin’ after this thing.”

Sam raised a brow. He had his face resting in his hand, obviously tired, but it was the confusion on his face that was really shining through. “What for? A case is a case, right? Besides, you were the one who wanted to get outta the bunker.”

“I know,” Dean shrugged uneasily, “but…well, what’s the point? People’ve been seein’ this creep for almost three-hundred years. Thing’s just another urban legend. We know stuff like ghosts and vamps are real. Maybe we should leave this one to the locals.”

A tired smile played at Sam’s lips. “It’s funny, you being the skeptic. At least on this sort of stuff.”

“What is it with you?” Dean shook his head and huffed softly. “Serial killers and cryptids. Then again, you’ve always been kinda freaky – stands to reason your hobbies would be, too.”

“Ha _ha_ ,” Sam deadpanned. “Look – you get Hatchet Man, I get the Jersey Devil. Fair’s fair.” Dean could concede to that, he supposed. “We’re already here. We might as well give it our due diligence. What’d Cas say – ten sightings in the past month alone? There haven’t been numbers like that in over a hundred years. And if it turns out to be an owl, we’ll just cut our losses and head home. No big deal.”

Louise came back with their food, and Dean smiled. There really was nothing like having the full lumberjack after the sun had gone down. Breakfast for dinner was such a novelty. When they were kids, it had been Sam’s favorite to stop in at a diner and have scrambled eggs and hash browns for supper. Even now, there was still something in his eyes that belied how much this one little thing delighted him, and he dug into his omelet with more gusto than the bags under his eyes would have had you believe. Through a mouthful, he said, “There’s this online game where this billionaire sends you on a mission searching for cryptids - ya know, Bigfoot, chupacabra - “

“Chupacabra are real.”

“Yeah, _we_ know that. Anyways, one of the cryptids is the Jersey Devil, and you ride on a motorcycle through the woods – the Pine Barrens, I guess – to find this decrepit old house where the woman gave birth to the creature, and his head fucking pops up in the window, and it’s probably the worst jump-scare ever. Thing looks fucking demented. Got…green eyes and skin and is all drooling and cross-eyed. Didn’t help that I was playing at, like, three a.m.”

Sam sometimes got a little chatty when he was tired. Kept him awake. He also swore more. Some would say that would mean he was getting a little lazy with the language, but Dean knew that all it meant was that his walls were starting to come down. He loved the Sammy that swore and ate omelets with hot sauce at nine-thirty in diners with purple carpet. 

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You said this was an online game?”

“Yeah. And then you go outside the house and the thing is just...yeah, just hanging out there, looking like he wants to eat you. Anyways, that’s just one of the adventures you can do. The game is basically your character solving everybody else’s problems on a bunch of different side quests or whatever.”

Dean narrowed his brow. “Where’d you hear about this?”

“Kevin used to play it. Also, Claire. I guess her parents thought it was educational and not too sacrilegious. Oh, and Patience, too. As soon as Claire mentioned it she knew it right away. But anyway, long story short, Kevin showed it to me.”

Suddenly, realization dawned on Dean. “Is this a kid’s game?” He asked.

“Well, considering I had to give my age as fifteen - uh. Yeah. It’s pretty fucked up for a kid’s game. Anyways, you should totally give it a try sometime. There’s one where you get to fight Zeus.”

“We already did that.”

“Okay, then there’s like...five where you can get superpowers.” Dean still wasn’t sold, so Sam went for the big guns. “Also, zombies.”

Dean snorted. “That’s more Jack’s bag.” He shook his head. “Can’t believe you’re a thirty-five-year-old man playing a computer game for _children_. It’s fuckin’ rich, dude.” The zombies sounded kinda cool, and so did getting superpowers, but Dean wasn’t about to give his baby brother the satisfaction. Went against some sort of older sibling by-law.

“Yeah, whatever.” Sam flapped a hand at him, but there was a smirk tugging at his lips. “Anyways, I figure tomorrow we’ll go hit up some of the locations of the recent sightings, maybe go find the old house.”

Dean stabbed a fork into his pancakes. “Works for me.”

xXx

“…it’s described as a ‘kangaroo- or wyvern-like creature, with a goat- or horse-like head, leathery bat-like wings, horns, small arms with clawed hands, cloven hooves and a forked tail, and it moves quickly and emits a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream.’”

Dean knew what it looked like. So did Sam. So did everybody. But he still said, “Sweet.”

A call to Cas had confirmed that the most recent of the ten sightings had occurred in Leeds Point on the old Leeds family estate. It was a popular place for kids to go and get trashed, sneak around while hoping to get a glimpse of the monster, usually on some sort of dare. The person who had reported the most recent sighting had chosen to remain anonymous, the bastard, so all they had to go on was what had been reported on in the local paper, which was just going to have to be enough for them.

The drive wasn’t half-bad. It was New Jersey in November, so it was cold and wet, but at least it wasn’t raining; however, being so late in the season, the trees weren’t much to look at anymore, but at least the property wasn’t too hard to find. The house sat off the road, set into the trees, constructed of stone and mortar and falling apart. Not surprising – the place had gone unoccupied for centuries. As Dean pulled up beside it and peered out the window, Sam continued to read from his tablet.

“This site, _Weird New Jersey_ , has this to say:

_Legend has it that in 1735, a Pines resident known as Mother Leeds found herself pregnant for the thirteenth time…Mother Leeds was not living a wealthy lifestyle by any means. Her husband was a drunkard who made few efforts to provide for his wife and twelve children. Reaching the point of absolute exasperation upon learning of her thirteenth child, she raised her hands to the heavens and proclaimed, “Let this one be a devil!”…By all accounts the birth went routinely, and the thirteenth Leeds child was a seemingly normal baby boy. Within minutes however, Mother Leeds’s unholy wish of months before began to come to fruition. The baby started to change, and metamorphosed right before her very eyes. Within moments it transformed from a beautiful newborn baby into a hideous creature unlike anything the world had ever seen.”_

“So she cursed the kid.”

“Yeah, seems like.” Sam pursed his lips. “I mean, if it’s true, if this thing really does exist and the urban legends aren’t, well – “

“Urban legends?”

“Right. If the whole thing’s true, then maybe we’re looking at witchcraft, too.”

Be that as it may, unless the creature’s mother was still alive and a practicing witch, it didn’t really matter if the Jersey Devil’s mother had cursed him – at least, it didn’t matter in the sense that even if she had been a witch, there was nothing to do about it now. The baby had been transformed and was a monster no matter which way you looked at it, and Deborah was probably dead.

“Ya know, last time we went after this thing, Bobby died.”

Sam looked from Dean to the house sitting outside. It was a pretty sad-looking place, especially with the framing of an overcast sky and scraggly trees that had probably been there at least as long as the house had. A strange, fast-moving, human-like creature – that’s what people had been reporting seven years ago, but it had been Leviathan that time. The Jersey Devil hadn’t been accused of killing anything except pets and livestock ever since; it was just a…well - strange, fast-moving, human-like creature that left footprints and flew through the sky late at night.

“Last time we went after this thing, we weren’t hunting this thing at all, and Dick Roman killed Bobby. Not the Jersey Devil.”

“I’m just _say_ ing - “

“Bobby’s already dead, Dean. He can’t die again.”

Dean reared back and scowled, but he knew Sam was right. “Let’s go check out the house, huh?” He said, and with that, they walked through the thick layer of wet leaves covering the ground and made their way into the house.

It was even sadder-looking on the inside, if possible. From the outside, you could see that all the windows were out and the chimney was crumbling, but the interior looked like a safety hazard. Its floors were damp and mossy-green, and so were the walls. Every step was met with the creaking of wood, and every now and then there would come a rustle from something unseen – perhaps a field mouse or a squirrel as it ran back to whatever hole it had claimed for its home. There was a staircase, but Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to risk climbing it.

“Play to see who has to go upstairs?”

Dean already had his fist poised in the palm of his hand, a warrior primed for battle. His overconfidence in the hope that his one win a few years back was more than a fluke was astounding every single time. Sam mirrored his position. “Two out of three.” He decided to give him a fair shake.

In the end, though, it didn’t much matter, because Dean threw scissors twice in a row like he thought that was somehow clever. He threw up his hands. “This game’s rigged. You’re rigging it.”

Sam barked out a laugh. “ _Rigged?_ Dude, you know it’s called ‘rock, paper, scissors’, not ‘scissors, scissors, flip Sam off.’”

Dean proceeded to flip Sam off and came to the bottom of the mold-covered stairs. How in the ever-loving hell this place was still even _remotely_ intact neither of them could figure, but Sam watched on as Dean took the first of many timid, careful steps. “Careful,” he said unnecessarily, watching with bated breath in hopes the structure wouldn’t collapse – but at least it wasn’t Sam doing the climbing.

“So what exactly is it that we’re lookin’ for?” Dean asked, working to keep his voice steady, as every creak beneath his boots gave him pause.

“Well,” Sam called from the decaying great room, “besides people just flat-out claiming to have seen it, that recent account mentioned hearing wails and seeing hoove-shaped tracks.”

Dean breathed a sigh of relief when he got to the second floor unscathed. It wasn’t much prettier upstairs than it was downstairs; in fact, it was probably worse. The roof was caving in a few places, and gone in others so you could see out at the dull grey sky above – perfect for spotting a cryptid. If Dean had _any_ confidence in its structure, he would have tried to get a look up there to see if there were any tracks, but he was almost certain if he tried, he would be falling a couple of stories. Plan B, then.

Upstairs was two rooms. Dean guessed that the room he was standing in now might have been where the monster’s parents had slept, while the twelve children slept in the other one. It was hard to know for sure, of course, and if the story was true, any evidence of the destruction of the night the creature was born was long gone by now. The only thing to do was look for anything that would signal it having been here recently, and it crossed Dean’s mind that there was something sad about the thing coming back home. Three-hundred years and it was still coming back. Dean shook his head and wandered over to one of the broken windows, and lo and behold:

“Got something by the window,” he called downstairs. “Claw marks, maybe.”

“Get a picture!” Sam yelled, which Dean did, bitching about pussy-ass little brothers too scared to walk up a flight of old stairs. As he was doing that, though, there was a creak from the next room, causing Dean to pause. Putting his hand on his gun, he quietly made his way over to the door, the shuffling inside getting louder as he got closer. Counting silently to three, he threw the door open and -

“Jesus _Christ!”_

The boys screamed when Dean threw the door open, and immediately – and stupidly – ran right into his legs in an attempt to escape. Sam heard the screams and, rickety stairs be damned, bolted right upstairs two steps at a time. But it was just a couple of teenagers, maybe fifteen, and Dean was scowling, looking about ready to lecture them.

“The hell you two doing in there?” Dean asked. “You know how dangerous this place is?”

“Could say the same to you,” one of them grumbled. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second.”

Dean glowered, and the boys both shrunk back. They looked at each other. “Probably the same reason you are,” the taller of them said. “This is where the Jersey Devil’s s’posed to hang out.”

“People’ve been seeing it all over lately, but no one has proof.” The other one held up his phone, the camera open, looking smug. “That’s where we come in.”

“We also heard its haunted,” the tall kid said.

“Haunted?” Sam repeated. “You know that’s ridiculous, right? Ghosts aren’t real.” Oh, how _rich_ that lie was, every time.

“Are too. People’ve been saying that this whole _town’s_ haunted for years. I can prove it.”

And he did. Sam and Dean and the kid’s buddy leaned in to look at his phone, showing a picture of the town square. In one corner was a blurry but clearly human figure, transparent and pale, and dressed in period garb. If it weren’t for the transparency, Dean would have written him off as a LARPer. “Who is that?” Dean asked.

“Experts think it’s Daniel Leeds. He used to live out here and is, like, the Jersey Devil’s grandpa or something. That’s where he used to work in the picture.”

Sam looked at Dean wide-eyed. How was it the amateurs always got the best proof? “Have there been a lot of sightings of him?”

“People are always seeing crazy stuff around here,” the short one shrugged. “Ghosts are probably the least crazy. That’s why we came out here. If he’s haunting the town square, there’s gotta be something at his house, right?”

xXx

“Alright, new theory.”

“Hit me.”

After driving the boys home (but not before asking they send the picture of Daniel Leeds to them), Sam and Dean were back in their room at the Goldfinch Inn. As far as proof of the Jersey Devil went, all they had were some scratch marks on a windowsill, but this Daniel Leeds guys… _that_ was a helluva lot more compelling.

“Shapeshifting ghost.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. To be fair, the less convincing thing about all of this was that they were deciding to believe a couple of teenage boys, but Sam had scanned the picture – it hadn’t been doctored in any way. It was the strongest lead they had on something solid, anyways. “Okay.”

“Think about it – we’ve seen it before.”

“Not often.”

Sam threw up his hands. “Doesn’t mean it can’t happen. So, what if what people are _really_ seeing is this Daniel Leeds guys changing his form to look like the Jersey Devil? He’s connected to the story, and this website says he was often referred to as ‘the Leeds Devil.’ What if he’s who people have been seeing for years instead of some cryptid hanging out in the woods?”

Yeah, Dean supposed that was a pretty solid theory. Now that they had seen the picture, it also eliminated the possibility of it being a tulpa. “But how do we know for sure they’re connected?”

“We don’t,” Sam shrugged, reading over the webpage again. “I mean, I guess we could burn his bones, see what happens.”

Worth a shot, Dean supposed. “Alright,” he said. “Where’s he buried?”

More typing. “Uh, according to this site, the Church of Saint Mary’s.”

Dean popped off the bed and grabbed his coat. “Well, what’re we waiting for?”

xXx

The witching hour found Sam and Dean strolling through the old cemetery at the Church of Saint Mary’s, flashlights trained to the ground as they searched for the grave of Daniel Leeds. The older graves were always the hardest to decipher, having been weathered down over the years, and usually smaller and much simpler than new headstones. There was also the chance they were hidden, having been overtaken by nature. That was likely the case, if there was no one around to take care of them. Then, once they did locate it, it was hours of digging through the saturated ground, the smell of decay and the grime and the sweat seem like all you have ever known.

Dean looked back at Sam and smirked. Sam didn’t want to think about how naturally he carried the shovel, carelessly slung over his shoulder. “Spooky, huh?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh.”

The scene _was_ textbook spooky, but it wasn’t like it made a difference to either of them. This was their job, after all. But, yeah, to your average person, walking through an old boneyard in the middle of the night probably wasn’t their idea of a swell time. There was something about New England, too – it was just about as Old World as America got, and with the nearly-bare trees scratching against each other under a silver moon, it was like traveling back to a time before the United States were even united states. Everything in the graveyard looked like it was falling apart, those buried there slowly being swallowed up by the passage of time.

“Leeds, Leeds, Leeds…” Dean muttered under his breath, searching. “Burn this sucker up and then go home.”

Sam hummed, light and short. “It’s getting better, then?”

Dean didn’t say anything for a few beats. “Maybe,” he finally said softly. “Dunno. It’s, uh…somethin’ to get used to.” And that was putting it mildly. He just wasn’t used to sharing his space. Dean liked the people he liked, and those were the people he was okay with sharing his home with. Everyone else…they were just strangers. Probably good people, but strangers to him.

Sam was about to go into one of his well-meaning spiels when Dean suddenly pulled up and stopped. “What is it? Did ya find ‘im?”

Dean shook his head and put a finger to his lips. The two stilled themselves, listening, and a few moments later, Dean looked to Sam. “Voices,” he mouthed. Sam heard them, too – they were coming from the trees.

“Not ghosts,” Sam mouthed back. There had been no chill – at least, not one that wasn’t simply due to the autumn air – and when Sam had pulled out the EMF meter, there hadn’t been any sudden spike in activity. Meanwhile, the voices were getting louder, closer, and Dean reached for his waistband. Sam inwardly sighed, ready for Dean to once again take his fake job much too seriously.

Three figures came out of the woodwork.

“Hands where I can see ‘em.”

They stopped. The figures were hard to see through the dark, but they were tall, with masculine frames. There were three of them, and as Sam took them in, he locked eyes with one of them, who then looked down at Sam’s hand. He was still holding the EMF meter, the whir echoing through the night, lighting up his palm. He put it behind his back. 

Their frontman smirked. None of them had their hands up.

“Well, well. What in the name of Sam Hill is goin’ on here?”


	3. The Budget Ghostbusters

Earl Rogers, Warren Robinson, and Larry Greene were what Sam expected he, Dean, and Cas would look like in about fifteen years. Wearing ballcaps, beards, and flannel, the trio looked Sam and Dean up and down with identical looks of skepticism. It wasn’t often that you bumped into people at this time of night, and as the five men stared at each other, they all got the sense that there were toes being stepped on.

“What’re you two doin’ out here?” Their frontman – Warren, they would later learn – asked. He had an EMF meter in his hand, but it wasn’t on. Dean didn’t notice initially, but Sam had. The guy behind Warren – that was Larry – had the map, and the last one, Earl, was holding…

Oh. Oh, _man_. That was a Parker Brothers Ouija board. 

“Could ask you the same,” Dean said gruffly, not lowering his gun. It was full of rock salt, but Sam knew the threat was still there, even if these guys didn’t seem to care. “Little late for senior citizens to be out and about, don’t’cha think?”

“Ouch,” Warren said sarcastically. “You hurt me, junior.”

“Back down, man,” Earl said quietly, nudging his friend. His eyes darted from the EMF meter in Sam’s hand, then back up. “If you fellas got work to get done, we’ll let you get back to it.”

This made Sam and Dean pause, and Dean finally lowered his gun. Usually a moment like this would lead to a string of heated questions, usually from a guard or a groundskeeper, and then high-tailing it out of there to avoid getting shoved in the back of a police cruiser. Sam and Dean didn’t usually get caught, is the thing, but what was _less_ likely to happen was to come across a group of guys with Ouija boards and EMF meters who were willing to just let them get back to their work. Sam appraised the men again.

“Wait – are you guys…hunters?”

“Hunters?” Larry repeated. “Don’t know how much game y’all are gonna find out here. Hell, I ain’t even sure it’s _allowed_. Can’t shoot deer in a boneyard.”

But Earl was picking up what Sam was putting down. He had noticed the shovels. He had seen this before. “Not exactly,” he said, clearly understanding what Sam was getting at. “I think we’re all a little lost in translation here, though.”

“ _Lost in translation_?” Dean repeated. He looked to Sam, eyes saying, _Okay dude – what the fuck is going on here? I thought you and your manly-man beard had tamed all the wild ghost hunters._ Sam raised his eyebrows as if to say, _Apparently not._ “No, just – no. Just tell us what you’re doing here.”

“And I’m askin’ you two again - _you_ tell _us_ what _you’re_ doin’ here,” Warren said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Simple question, boys. Cuz to me it looks like you’re out to desecrate some graves.”

Before Dean could come back with another smart remark, Sam jumped in. “Yes, you’re right – we _are_ looking for a grave. Daniel Leeds. There’s been reports in town concerning a ghost fitting his description.”

Suddenly, the demeanor of the other two men standing opposite them instantly changed. Earl seemed to let out a breath he had been holding in. “He’s not actually buried here,” Larry told them. “He’s buried on private property. Legend says somewhere on the estate with the rest of the Leeds family. Thing is, though, people don’t exactly know where on the property they might be, just that it’s somewhere up on the highest point.”

Well, that was just great, wasn’t it? Par for the course. Wouldn’t be a true case if there weren’t a couple of kinks. Sam felt his face heat up; he should have known that. At least, he should have known that his gravesite was undisclosed and wasn’t just in the town cemetery. God, he probably could have found that out on Find-A-Grave. Maybe he had the wrong Daniel Leeds. Now they were back to square one. “Well – good to know,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

Warren considered the two of them, mouth twisted to the side as he thought. Something in his demeanor had changed after watching his friends talk to these young’uns. “Y’all wanna get a drink? It’s on us. Maybe we could help you out.”

Another exchanged look. Sam and Dean had no reason to trust these guys, and they had no idea what the three of them were doing out here, but they were in no position to turn down the chance to get some information on what was quickly turning out to be a much more complicated case than they had originally thought. Sam cocked his head; Dean gave a small shrug of the shoulders. It was settled, then.

“Alright, then,” Dean grudgingly accepted. “Lead the way.”

xXx

Twenty minutes later, the five of them were sat in a booth in a small tavern back in town, frothy pints sitting in front of them and Johnny Mathis – of all the fucking people – being piped through the speakers. In the dim lighting of the bar, they could all make each other out more clearly: Earl, Warren, and Larry could see that Sam and Dean were a little older than they originally thought them to be, a bit more grizzled; Sam and Dean could see that Earl, Warren, and Larry – _The Budget Ghostbusters_ , as Dean had coined them on the drive over to Sam, which made Sam roll his eyes because what were they? Government-funded? – didn’t look quite so haggard and ancient as they had in the deceptive darkness of the graveyard. There was something reassuring about these realizations, though none of them could quite put a finger on the why of it.

“The Leeds family is a pretty storied one in these parts – as I’m sure you’ve guessed. The whole town’s named after ‘em,” Larry began to explain. The man had a knack for research and had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the American east coast, especially when it came to Civil War minutiae. He was sort of a freak about it, actually. “They weren’t exactly well-liked in town. Daniel Leeds published an almanac with all sorts of out-there stuff - Christian occultism, mysticism, cosmology, demonology, angelology, natural magic…” He shrugged as Sam’s eyebrows reached towards his hairline. “Pissed off the Quakers. People started callin’ him the Leeds Devil, and that’s where most sensible people think the urban legend came from.”

“Family crest has a wyvern on it, too,” Earl added. He was a bit more quiet than the other two, but at the same time, he had been the one carrying around the Ouija board, which Dean still couldn’t get over. They worked, sure, knew that from experience, but it was still always a little jarring to see someone carrying around a board game as a way to truly connect with the dead. It hadn’t even been one of those real fancy ones – it looked like he had picked it up from the toy aisle in maybe 1980. The box had been roughed-up and was worn at the edges and corners, obviously cared for but starting to fall apart simply due to the passage of time. “And most people would describe the Jersey Devil as lookin’ something like a wyvern. So. Real ugly thing, as I’m sure you both know.”

Alright, they already knew most of that. “But it probably ain’t real,” Dean said. “Daniel’s real, or he was. His family was real. The monster’s just an urban legend.”

“And it’s turning out that we’re probably looking for ghosts, not the Jersey Devil,” Sam reminded the other men. “We’ve seen a few instances of ghosts shifting their forms before. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what Daniel’s spirit is doing, and maybe has always been doing.”

The other men didn’t look particularly convinced, instead exchanging glances and shrugs. Monsters weren’t exactly in their wheelhouse – ghosts, yeah, those were for sure. And Sam’s theory did make sense, they supposed, but the three of them weren’t stupid. They knew that ghosts shifting their corporeal forms took a lot of energy, and was therefore pretty rare. Hell, it took enough energy for spirits to even _speak_ to them most times, let alone manifest themselves. Changing their appearance was a whole ‘nother ballgame. 

“We’re not lookin’ for the damned thing, either” Warren laughed. “But you can’t blame us for wantin’ to catch up on three-hundred-year-old gossip. Daniel’s publishing rival was Ben Franklin, ya know. Ben would drag the Leeds family name over the coals in _Poor Richard’s Almanac_ every chance he got. The dead have secrets, boys!” he sang.

And the dead most certainly did have secrets, that much Sam and Dean knew to be true. But they hadn’t come here to learn about a centuries-old feud; they had come here – apparently – to put Daniel Leeds to rest so he would stop rambling aimlessly through the town square and scaring the shit out of the locals.

“So that’s what you were doing in the graveyard,” Sam said. “Getting the four-one-one from a bunch of ghosts.”

“It’s what we do best,” Larry nodded. “Earl here is the real deal.”

Earl looked embarrassed at this. “Wait. _Real deal?”_ Dean repeated. “Like…a psychic.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Earl sighed and said, “Not exactly a psychic. I guess medium might be a more appropriate word for it. My grandmother was in the business, so…you know. Family business, and all that.”

Sam snorted softly. “Yeah, we get you.”

“So to recap,” Warren began warily, “you two came out here on account of the recent sightings, but a couple of teenagers out at the old Leeds place have got you convinced that what you’re _really_ dealin’ with here is a ghost that shapeshifts.” His speech was absolutely _dripping_ with skepticism. “And you two call yourselves experts.”

Dean took immediate offense to that. “Hey, listen, buddy – we’ve been doin’ this our whole lives. In our experience, that scenario’s a helluva lot more likely.” Dean scowled into his beer even though he wasn’t exactly convincing himself, either. “Where the hell do you guys get off giving advice, anyways? You said yourself you weren’t hunters. You even seen a monster before?”

“I still don’t know what the hell you two mean by that,” Larry admitted. “Y’all really aren’t looking for big game or something?”

“Well,” Earl drawled, “it _is_ like being big game hunters, but instead of deer or something, it’s ghosts and…” He briefly glanced at the brothers. “You know. Werewolves. Vampires.”

“Monsters,” Sam clarified. “Instead of game, we hunt monsters.”

“Save a lotta people, too. We’d never wanna hurt a deer, anyways,” Dean grinned.

Sam and Dean were used to giving The Talk – it was rarely ever something that went over very well. Introducing their world to others was almost sickening. Sam and Dean rarely ever thought about it because it was their lives; things that go bump in the night were a well-known truth. For most people, though, they were just stories. It was Earth-shattering stuff to find out that it was all real.

But Larry and Warren hardly seemed fazed. They sat drinking their beers for a few moments, mulling that over, and then shrugged. “Well. Guess that’s how it is, then,” was all Warren said.

“You knew this?” Larry asked Earl, who nodded. “You didn’t tell us.” Earl shook his head. “Well, at least we know now.”

This was underwhelming. Dean had been hoping for at least a _few_ fireworks, but Warren and Larry took it all in stride. 

“How could you two have known ghosts were real, but not the rest of it?” Sam asked. For him, it was all just a given. He almost took it for granted.

“I guess we just…focus on people,” Earl eventually said. “Alive or dead. And I don’t mean saving them, like the two of you, I mean…” He looked over at his friends, his eyes asking them to help in describing the shade of difference.

“Okay,” Larry jumped in, “so, you guys, you…you go after threats, it sounds like. Someone gets hurt, you run into the fray. We’ve come across some angry spirits, but we usually get to them before that. We get a call about some hinky shit goin’ on and we cleanse the place.”

“And you’d be surprised how long some of these people can stick around after they’re dead,” Warren added. “For whatever reason, they stay, and they’re not throwing people down staircases. Mostly just fucking with lights and pianos. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the majority of spiritual cases.”

Sam pursed his lips, thinking. Now he was wondering how many of the ghost calls they’d had over the years were just a matter of them showing up too late. That they were just waiting for bodies. Monsters – that was a little different. They were alive, were bloodthirsty or simply out of control. A spirit, though, they were people once. At the end of the day, they always will have been people. And people are complicated, even in death.

“We don’t have time to just go around talking to ghosts,” Dean said tiredly. “We cover so much ground…” He sighed. These guys had no _idea_ how much ground. It wasn’t just ghosts, it wasn’t just monsters, it was angels and demons and tears in the universe. But that was a whole ‘nother can of worms.

“I guess that’s what we’re for, then” Larry smirked.

The table fell into silence. Their beers had suddenly become very interesting. It wasn’t on their older counterparts, but Sam and Dean, as they let the conversation fall to the wayside. Sam, at the very least, was suddenly feeling very inadequate. He had never seen these guys in action, but if what they were saying was true, it sounded a lot nicer than whatever he and his brother were doing. You generally can’t save people that are already dead – but maybe you can, if you were these guys.

“Alright,” Dean finally spoke up. “Okay. So, here’s how I see this. There’s somethin’ goin’ on here, maybe multiple somethings, but we’re here, so we should…take care of it, whatever _it_ is.”

“That’s what you two were going to do in the graveyard,” Warren said, lowering his voice. “You were gonna exhume his body.”

“Good ol’-fashioned salt-‘n’-burn,” Dean drawled. A hunter’s bread and butter. Fire was cleansing, after all. In a sense. 

Earl sighed. Clearly this wasn’t sitting right with him. “But even if that really is Daniel Leeds’ spirit in that picture, the worst you’ve accused him of is shifting his incorporeal form to look like a monster. Far as we know, he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Or,” Warren intoned, “who knows – maybe it’s the real deal.” Larry gave his buddy a look. “What? Doesn’t seem so out of the box to me. Not now, at least.”

“But then we have two problems on our hands,” Dean said, clearly exasperated. “A ghost in one hand and a monster in the other.”

“Once again – how is that a problem? If neither of them is hurting anybody, why’s it matter? Hell, begs the question, if you usually wait for a body to drop, what the fuck are you two doing here in the first place?”

Warren’s question seemed to stun Dean, and a need to defend his brother flared up in Sam’s chest, but then he had to admit to himself that Warren had a point. This was _their_ territory, _their_ toes that Sam and Dean were stepping on. But when Sam looked at Dean, and Dean looked back at Sam, he could see why they were out here, and it really didn’t have anything to do with monsters. It had nothing to do with ghosts. It had everything to do with Dean feeling like a stranger in his own home.

“Maybe you’re right,” Sam said. “Alright? Maybe you’re right, and we’re wrong, and we’ve got no right to be here right now. But we’re here. And it’s a fact that there’s a ghost wandering the streets of this town, and it’s a fact that there’s been an increase in sightings of the Jersey Devil in the area. So instead of you riding with us, let us ride with you. If we’re going to determine if this thing is a monster or a ghost, what would you do next?”

These guys already had plenty of opinions on the Winchester brothers (Why hadn’t they heard of them before now? Why wait for the spirit to turn vengeful?), but don’t let it be said that Sam Winchester wasn’t willing to learn. He was a goddamned Man of Letters, and the more you know, the better armed you’ll be. This was just another learning experience in a lifetime of learning experiences.

“We need to try and talk to that guy,” Larry said, nodding towards Sam’s phone sitting in the middle of the table, amidst peanut shells and beer sweat, the supposed picture of Daniel Leeds’ ghost staring up at them. “Best bet is to do it on the Leeds property, try to get as close to his resting place as possible.”

“We were there earlier,” Dean said, scrolling through his phone, and he held it out to show the picture of the claw marks by the windowsill. “These match up with one of the sightings. Ghosts _can_ do physical damage, if they’re strong enough.”

Earl pursed his lips. They knew what to do if it turned out this was a ghost problem, and these Winchester boys, he was sure, knew their stuff when it came to monsters. But the Jersey Devil was a local legend, so who better to tap in than the locals? And there was one group in town who claimed to know the Jersey Devil better than anyone else on the eastern seaboard.

“I know what you boys need. Somebody who knows everything there is to know about the Jersey Devil and who’ve dedicated everything to finding proof of it.”

“Who’s that?” Sam asked. Earl smiled.

“You boys need the Devil Hunters.”


	4. The Devil Hunters' Lament

The Devil Hunters liked to hang around in diners, specifically a place called Rodger-Dodger’s that had a menu about a million pages long. New Jersey was the diner capitol, after all, and where else were they going to meet in this small town? The library? The four of them occupied the big booth by the window like they were the kids at the more popular of the food allergy tables, cups of coffee and soda and plates stacked high with fries sitting on the Formica tabletop. The next day, the brothers and their new friends headed over to Rodger-Dodger’s and approached their table, the Devil Hunters giving them the once-over. Larry made the introductions.

“Sam, Dean, these are the Devil Hunters. Guys, this is Sam and Dean Winchester. They work outta Kansas.”

One of the Devil Hunters – who Dean was pegging as the leader – sucked noisily on his straw and watched Sam and Dean. Sam felt like his skin was starting to itch under his scrutiny. Finally, he asked, “Hunters?” Earl nodded. “Yeah, they’ve got the look. It’s the flannel, ya know.”

Warren gestured to his own flannel. “I take offense to that.”

The leader ignored him. “Well, Sam and Dean Winchester, I’m Number One, and these are my colleagues, Number Two” – a woman with long, jet-black hair and a spray tan waved – “Number Three” – a nod from the skinny guy next to Number One – “and then Number Four.” Number Four looked like he was maybe eighteen or nineteen, and he kept playing with his vape pen. “Here, why don’t you all siddown.”

Larry, Earl, and Warren slid into the booth, but Dean looked over at Sam in disbelief. “ _Codenames?”_ He mouthed, sneering, and Sam rolled his eyes to the ceiling and threw his hands up. Yep – codenames. These were the experts on the Jersey Devil, and they used codenames. _Codenames._

“How do you know these guys?” Sam asked Larry, keeping his voice mum as they lowered themselves onto the cracking vinyl bench seat.

“They advertise themselves, for one,” Larry snickered, and Sam had flashbacks to the Ghostfacers and shuddered. “But, all the paranormal groups are sorta aware of each other out here. We’re practically on top of each other. My sister actually came across one of them in some online forum? Well, we told her this ain’t exactly our wheelhouse, but she made us exchange emails. I think it’s really just a courtesy to keep anybody’s toes from getting stepped on.”

Number One cleared his throat; he didn’t like being excluded from conversation. “Earl says you’re huntin’ the Jersey Devil. You gonna kill it?”

Dean flounded. “Uh – “

“Cuz I know how you hunters are. Stepping on people’s toes, sticking your noses where you shouldn’t.”

“These guys?” Warren asked, feigning shock. “Nah, they’re reformed. They just want proof of the damn thing for their records, right?” He looked to Sam and Dean, who nodded fervently. Warren favored them with a smile. “And frankly, we’re interested in seein’ if the thing’s a hoax or not, too. Y’all’re the experts, ain’t ya? We’re headed to the old Leeds place tonight, and we think it best if y’all came along.”

Number One sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, first considering Sam, Dean, Earl, Larry, and Warren one by one, then turning to the rest of the Devil Hunters, leaning their heads in together so they could confer. After a few moments, Number One turned back to the rest of the group.

“We’re in. But there’s a few things you gotta know first.”

Here’s what they gotta know:

As Larry had told them earlier, the Leeds family was described as “monsters” during the pre-Revolution period due to political intrigue involving everyone from New Jersey politicians to Benjamin Franklin, and referred to Mother Leeds’ father-in-law as the “Leeds Devil” because of some of his more Pagan beliefs, which pissed off all those Quakers and led to the censorship of Daniel’s almanac. In spite of this, Leeds continued to publish, which just provoked Franklin to make jokes about one of his sons – Titan – claiming he was a ghost after he got offended by an astrology joke in _Poor Richard’s Almanac_ saying he would die that October 1733. But Franklin kept making the joke, possibly contributing to the Leeds Devil folktale. 

The Leeds family crest – a crest being a symbol of monarchy and royalty, included a wyvern, something the colonists of New Jersey were starting to turn against at the time. This certainly didn’t help the Leeds’ case, and it’s supposed that the crest contributed to how the Jersey Devil is partially depicted. Eventually, with the public essentially against the entire Leeds family, the story became legendary throughout the region, a folktale to tell to scare the kiddies and illiterates.

But the Devil Hunters didn’t buy all that folktale shit.

In 1735, after discovering she was pregnant for the 13th time, a woman commonly referred to as Mother Leeds – some say her name was Jane, some say it was Deborah, (the Devil Hunters were firmly in the Deborah camp) – cursed the child in frustration, crying that the child would be the devil. Her husband was a drunken ass who barely provided for the family, so baby number thirteen was the final straw. (Some claimed that Mother Leeds was a witch and the father was the Devil, as in the actual big-bad Prince of Darkness himself, but even though they knew _that_ one wasn’t true, Sam and Dean kept mum on that particular bit of information.) According to legend, she went into labor on a stormy night while her friends gathered around her, and there was at least one midwife on the scene. At first, the baby was normal, but began to change within minutes. Some accounts had the creature killing just the midwife; some say it killed multiple midwives, its mother, some of the Leeds’ friends, and some of its human siblings. No one was certain.

“People have been seeing it ever since,” Number One said gravely. Dean was having a hard time taking him seriously because he had some syrup in his moustache, but he didn’t want to slow his roll. “But we haven’t had a rash of sightings like this since January of ’09.” The way Number One said it, you would think he had just creamed his pants. He and his fellow Devil Hunters were practically salivating at this chance to regale Sam and Dean with their knowledge of the cryptid, which – again – they already knew quite a bit about.

“Nineteen oh-nine,” Number Three clarified. “There were hundreds of sightings in the span of a week. And not just here in the Pine Barrens – there were sightings all over the state.”

“Pennsylvania, too,” Number Four said quietly. He seemed sort of shy, mostly sat there fidgeting. “People were seeing footprints in the snow, from their fields to their roofs. People started freaking out and forming posses.”

“Schools closed, people refused to go into work…they had to shut down the mills,” Number Two added. “They even claim to have shot at the thing twice, but weren’t able to bring it down.”

“It all ended when a woman saw ‘im trying to eat her dog. Hasn’t been anything like it since – even now doesn’t compare,” Number One said, bringing their… _thrilling_ account of the history of the Jersey Devil to a close.

“Fascinating,” Dean deadpanned.

“And you guys promise you aren’t gonna kill it?” Number Four asked, genuinely worried about the creature. “He’s never hurt anybody, far as we know. Just some animals…and a bunch of people the night it was born, if the story’s true…but still…”

“Have you even seen it before?” Sam asked, even though what he really wanted to ask was how they were so certain the Jersey Devil was a _he_.

Number Two scoffed. “Of course we have. He likes to come out late at night, usually.”

“Perfect,” Earl suddenly interjected. “Evening’s the best time for a séance, after all.”

“Excuse me?” Number Three asked. “The hell would we need to do that for?”

Number One shook his head and said to Number Three lowly, “These spiritual types. But yeah – what the hell would we need to do that for?”

“Well…wouldn’t you like to hear a firsthand account of the story?” Dean asked, gently persuading instead of spouting off about their _the Jersey Devil is really just the shapeshifting ghost of Daniel Leeds_ theory. It would probably just put the Devil Hunters off them. “Maybe we could get in contact with someone who was there that night, if the story you believe is true. And Earl here…well, Earl’s the real deal,” Dean confided, even though he had never seen him in action.

The Devil Hunters were tempted by this. It was one thing to have amassed pictures of dark shapes going by in the night sky, footprints in the dirt, scratches on roofs and by windowsills – it would be another to get the low-down from someone who had actually been there that night. Number One had traded emails with Larry a couple of times; if he and his crew really knew how to get in touch with spirits, like he said they were, then maybe it would be worth tagging along with these guys. Even the hunters, just so long as they promised not to kill him if they saw him. There was no evidence of the Jersey Devil ever going after people, anyways.

“Alright,” Number One said. “You can do your séance. Just so long as we can bring _our_ equipment.”

“ _Your_ equipment?” Dean asked. “And what exactly would that be?”

The Devil Hunters just smiled.

xXx

The Leeds Home welcomed Sam and Dean back that night with open, shadowy arms that looked suspiciously liked the bare branches of centuries’-old trees – only this time, they had an entourage. It could be said that the old house nestled into the Pine Barrens was even creepier and more decrepit-looking at night, but it simply wasn’t true. The fact was that it was just as creepy in the daylight as it was now. 

However, the Devil Hunters setting up a key light and pulling out cameras added a certain surreal quality to the whole production. “Feels like the Ghostfacers all over again,” Dean grumbled, frowning at the candle he was lighting. “And this feels like a fire hazard.”

“The wood is soaked. We’re more likely to fall through the floor or get tetanus.” Sam set another candle atop an outcropping in the stone. “I get what you mean, though. But they’ve dedicated themselves to this thing, and at least they haven’t got anybody killed. Well – yet,” he amended.

“Just feels like too many cooks in the kitchen,” Dean muttered, glancing around the room. Warren and Larry were lighting candles as well, and when Warren caught his eye, he winked at him. Dean just shook his head. The candlelight flickered across the wet wood and mossy stone, and while the Devil Hunters flitted about trying to find all the good angles in a house with no good angles, Earl sat right in the middle of the rotting floor, staring intently at his talking board. He didn’t even look like he was breathing. Sam thought he was the least likely psychic he had ever seen, a middle-aged man in a Red Sox cap. But then, how likely a psychic had Sam seemed as a twenty-something yuppie? 

“Little bit,” Sam agreed quietly, watching the flickering wick. He had been impressed by the sheer amount of candles Earl kept in his car, and that he obviously got some wherever he could – the Leeds House was starting to smell a kitschy gift shop. “But I think it’ll be worth it this time.”

Dean rolled his lips. That was Sam’s stance on things these days – the more the merrier. Thing is, Dean liked people. He really did. He liked being in bars, and busy restaurants, and rustling up games of pool; he could talk just about anybody’s ear off, too, even a perfect stranger, like these guys were. But it was just his luck that the thin lead he used to get away from a bunch of strangers breathing down his neck lead led him into the arms of even _more_ strangers breathing down his neck.

At least the Budget Ghostbusters and the Devil Hunters didn’t know about Michael, didn’t look at him with wariness and a lingering uncertainty of who he really is. That was a plus.

“I just think it’s good, ya know? Different strokes and all that, but if Earl really is the real deal, it wouldn’t hurt to have a medium on our side.”

Dean tottered his head. Fair enough.

“I think we’re all set up here,” Number One said as he made the final adjustments on their DSLR camera. Number Four had explained to Sam that it was rigged up to track movement, which a lot of times just got them pictures of owls and wind-whipped trees, but they had gotten some pretty compelling blurs caught on camera, as well. “You guys can do your hocus-pocus while we keep watch.”

“Is there anything that attracts the Jersey Devil?” Larry asked as he made his way to sit next to Earl. “Ya know, just to up our chances of a sighting.”

“A couple things,” Number Three said. “Like outward displays of sin. Or forest sex.”

“Oh,” Dean said weakly. That wasn’t helpful at all. “Well – any takers?”

The only response was a snort from Warren.

“Sam, Dean, why don’t the two of you come do this with us.” 

Sam and Dean went to sit down, but not before Dean went over to his duffel bag and pulled out one of his shotguns. He handed it over to the closest Devil Hunter, which happened to be Number Four, the scrawny one. “Just in case,” Dean said, and Number Four nodded shakily. And then Dean sat down.

Earl nodded to the other men in the circle. “Alright. The more concentrated energy we have, the better chance we have of making contact with Daniel.”

“Daniel?” Number One repeated. “Daniel Leeds wasn’t there the night Mother Leeds gave birth. Why are you trying to contact _him?_ ”

“Uh,” Sam stammered, looking at the other men sitting around the talking board. “Uh. Well, he was his grandfather?” He tried.

“Let’s just get started,” Earl said.

“No, I think there’s something you guys aren’t telling us,” Number Two accused them. “What is – “

“Didn’t you hear him?” Dean snapped, putting an end to the matter. “He’s starting, let the man do his work. You’ll get your fucking pictures, okay? Okay. Earl, buddy, take it away!”

With a wide-eyed look to Sam, Earl put his fingertips on the planchette, the signal for the rest of them to do so. The Devil Hunters stood at attention, cameras at the ready, and Earl took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Nobody else did, just Earl, and while the Devil Hunters watched for their beloved cryptid, Sam and Dean watched the board.

“Are there any spirits with us tonight?”

Earl’s voice was a relaxed monotone; it was the tone of voice of a man who had recited this script a thousand times. A scoff came from outside the circle, and Sam looked over his shoulder to find the culprit, but whoever had done it had shut up quick. 

“We’re looking to contact Daniel Leeds,” Earl continued when the planchette didn’t move. “We hear you’ve been busy, Daniel, and we just have some questions.” The planchette moved a tick, and the backs of the men in the circle straightened. “C’mon, Daniel,” Earl wheedled. “Don’t leave us hanging.”

The wind started up outside, and Sam heard the shutter on one of the cameras go off and one of the Devil Hunters mutter a silent ‘ _fuck_ ’ and move to reset the timer. As the wind picked up, the planchette suddenly moved to **NO**. But no what? Dean looked at Sam over the board and raised an eyebrow, silently asking the same question.

“What do you mean, _no?”_ Earl asked. He’d had the movements of the board memorized since he was fifteen; he didn’t need to peek to see what the spirit was saying. And there was a spirit here, no doubt. He could feel them. “No stringing us along. Either talk or reveal yourself.”

The spirit didn’t like that. No, not at all, if the crack of thunder outside meant anything. 

“Was it supposed to rain?” Number Four asked.

“No,” Dean said shortly, and Number Four shrank back. “Somebody’s pissed.”

“Somebody’s something, that’s for sure,” Warren muttered. “Earl, why don’t you – “

“I got it,” Earl dismissed. “Alright, let’s start over. I know you’re here, but am I wrong? Are you not Daniel?” The planchette moved to **YES**. “A-ha!”

“Are you a member of the Leeds family?” Sam asked, and instantly regretted it, worried he had crossed a line. Larry and Warren looked at him a little funny, but Earl didn’t say anything. The planchette circled back around to **YES** with another low roll of thunder and the skies opening with a splash.

“Now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” Dean mumbled. 

Then came the sudden drop in temperature, and while the Devil Hunters were more than happy to chalk up the cool to the now-raging storm outside, the more experienced knew better. Earl’s eyes suddenly shot open, intensely focused on some point in the distance straight ahead of him. “We’ve got company,” he said, keeping his gaze steady and unblinking. “But it’s not who we were expecting.”

“Then…who?” Sam asked, voice hushed. The moment seemed to warrant it. It was the opposite of guns blazing; it was a moment that was as cold and still as the dead itself.

They all followed Earl’s gaze. There, coming through the doorway, was a bright light. Formless at first as it floated into the room, and then it stopped, and almost seemed to turn towards the group. As the light surrounding the figure started to fade, they could see the slim silhouette of a woman.

“Oh my god,” Number Three whispered. “Is that who I think it is?”

For the first time in nearly three-hundred years, the soul of Deborah Leeds was awake.


	5. Sorrow to the Stones

Deborah Leeds was a wisp of a woman – as she was in life, so she was in death. Her long dark hair hung to her waist, loosely curling, her features pale and soft. She did not look like a woman who had given birth to thirteen children, and certainly not a monster. Her feet made no sound as she crossed the floor of her old home, and she looked around the space as if she was seeing it for the first time. In a way, she was; when Deborah died, this house had been filled with the presence of her and Japhet and their twelve children, visiting family, and any friends they had managed to keep over the years. Nowadays, the Leeds Family home was empty and falling apart, and where her living room used to be sat a group of strange-looking people in even stranger-looking clothes, all of them staring at her with sad eyes. Why the sad eyes? The further away she got from everything, the harder it was to remember; remember what had happened, what it had felt like, what it was like to even experience that sadness she could see reflected back at her. But then it came back with startling clarity, slowly at first, then all at once. Deborah certainly remembered the sadness, remembered the fear of that night, remembered watching as the _thing_ she had given birth to tore apart everyone in that room; remembered how it had ripped her limb from limb. She remembered _everything_ now.

Earl took his hands off the planchette, glanced at Sam, whispering, “Don’t move a muscle, not just yet. We gotta keep from scarin’ her off.” Then he slowly rose to standing.

Sam shot his eyes over to Dean, who was watching Deborah with a gentle wariness. The Devil Hunters were almost as pale as Deborah; you would think a group of people obsessed with a region-specific cryptid that spent their free time trying to prove its existence would be able to accept that ghosts were a thing – especially when the ghost in question was the monster’s mother – but it was apparently taking them a bit by surprise. Winged beasts were totally believable, but spirits? That was going to take a minute to set in. 

Clearly they hadn’t believed that the Winchesters and the Budget Ghostbusters were the real deal.

As Sam watched to make sure no one moved, Dean kept his eyes trained on Deborah, and so did Warren and Larry. Earl approached her slowly, as one would a lost child or an injured animal, stopping a few feet from her as if trying to give her some space, and then he spoke in a low voice. “Are you Deborah Leeds?”

At her nod, Earl glanced back over his shoulder, eyes ping-ponging from person to person until he settled on Dean, and then he waved him over. Dean eagerly scrambled to his feet, sore knees be damned, and made the same slow approach that Earl had. Meanwhile, the rest of them watched on.

“Deborah, my name is Earl Rogers, and this here is my friend Dean Winchester. Those other people, those are our friends, too. Nobody here wants to bring you any more trouble.”

“We just have a few questions, Mrs. Leeds,” Dean said, and even he surprised himself when he heard how he had subconsciously made his tone match Earl’s. Usually with ghosts, it was shoot first ask questions never, then salt and burn whatever was left of ‘em. Conversations with lost souls had been few and far between over the years. The Budget Ghostbusters were right, Dean thought to himself. By the time bodies were dropping, it was too late. Any humanity the guilty spirit would have left was nearly gone by that point. This was different.

Deborah opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She put her bone-thin fingers to her lips as if she were embarrassed by her inability to speak. Patience was key here; if they pushed her, she might get upset and either lash out or leave, or possibly even both. A few moments later, Deborah lowered a hand to her throat and opened her mouth again, as if willing her long disused vocal chords to work.

“I…” she whispered, voice crackling. “Yes,” she finally breathed, voice paper-thin and reedy. “That is my name.”

It was an incredibly delayed response to their first question, and Sam saw Warren biting on his lip as if he were holding back some sort of snarky remark. Probably a good idea. When Deborah opened her mouth to speak again, Dean and Earl moved in, and so did the rest of their cadre, straining to hear what it was the woman had to say. This time, when she spoke, her voice was just as weak, but equally pained.

“Why are you in my house?” She asked, sounding scared.

“We just have some questions,” Dean reminded her. “We don’t want any trouble, Deborah. We just need your help, that’s all. I promise.”

Sam felt as if he was barely breathing, and it was clear the Devil Hunters had given up on it as soon as Mrs. Leeds had appeared, but Larry and Warren kept their breaths even and their demeanors calm. It wasn’t so much that they had managed to speak to a spirit and avoid getting thrown into a wall thus far; no, for Sam, it was watching his brother reach out to this fragile soul. Dean had always been good with people, but gentle he was not – but here they were.

“This house is not safe,” she went on to say, clearly trying to warn them. “This is a house of monsters and demons! You are not safe here. I beg you all to leave.”

“We can’t do that.”

Sam startled even himself by speaking up and breaking the relative quiet, and the Devil Hunters wheeled to face him so fast Sam was worried they would give themselves whiplash. Even Larry and Warren raised inquisitive brows. But this wasn’t Sam’s first rodeo; it was just that the atmosphere wasn’t one he and his brother were used to. Patience may be key, but it was not one of their virtues, not even really one of Sam’s. But he couldn’t help it; something to do with Deborah’s sad eyes, her fluttery voice. Her fear.

“This is a house of _murder_ ,” she choked out. “It killed us.”

“It?” Dean repeated. “You mean – “

“The child I bore that night was hardly a child,” Deborah whispered bitterly. “It was an evil, _evil_ creature. It tore off the head of Betsy Proctor. Made a bloodbath of my bedchamber. It made orphans of my children. It will not show you any mercy.”

“The same way you didn’t,” Number One spat. “You cursed that child to be what it is.”

“Dude!” Sam hissed. “Back off!”

“It’s a fragile connection,” Larry muttered.

“I am no _witch_ ,” Deborah defended herself.

“You were its _mother_.”

“ _Those are not the same!”_ Deborah screamed, blowing out a few candles. Dean and Earl took a step back from her. “I know that creature has been here recently, and it will come again! You best leave before it kills you, too.”

“That’s why you’re awake,” Warren said. “Your son’s been hangin’ around these parts again.”

“That thing is not my son. It’s _not_ ,” Deborah insisted. Then she demurred, remembering her eighteenth century manners. “But…yes. I know for a fact that my father-in-law has been awoken as well, the old fool.”

“So Daniel Leeds _is_ awake,” Sam said. “But he’s not the Jersey Devil.”

Deborah looked shocked. “No! No. Daniel Leeds and that son of his I married were monsters of a different kind. This…Jersey Devil? That was the product of the union between my husband and me. The monster must come from _Japhet’s_ side of the family.” And then another well-timed lightning strike. Maybe Japhet was up and kicking, too.

Earl gave Sam a tight smile. “Well, there goes your shapeshifting ghost theory.”

“ _Shapeshifting ghost?”_ Number One snarled. “What the hell is he talking about?”

“Dude, calm down,” Number Three tried, but Larry launched into a lecture.

“Sam and Dean were thinking that Daniel Leeds – who, as we’ve confirmed thanks to Mrs. Leeds here, has had his spirit awoken by the reemergence of his monstrous grandson – was shifting his form to look like the Jersey Devil that had been popularized in the local folklore. However, it looks now that this isn’t the case, and Mrs. Leeds here has all but confirmed for us that she did indeed give birth to it, was killed by it, and has had her spirit stirred up by it. So, really, you should be thanking us – not only can Deborah give you a firsthand account of what happened the child was born, but that the monster….”

He trailed off. It was setting in, then. That the Jersey Devil wasn’t just a folktale, it was –

“That the monster is real,” Sam said. “That you were right.” 

“Hope your cameras have been rolling,” Dean snarked.

Deborah stood back from the scene, at these strange people, these strange things they had brought with them. She had no idea what a camera was or why anyone wouldn’t believe her story; any survivors from that night would have told everyone in town because they were all a bunch of gossiping trollops, Deborah was certain. And what else would have explained her death? Her husband’s? Betsy’s head on one side of the room and her body on the other? Felicity’s scalp plastered to the wall? The slit-open body of the midwife? There was only one thing that could have done all of that, and it wasn’t childbirth.

“My story is true,” she said, her voice shaking. “All of it is _true_.” As the rain continued to pick up outside, Deborah went to what used to be a window and watched the autumn storm ravage the Pine Barrens. She gestured to the storm. “And this…is exactly what it was like the night I died. It’s close – I know it.”

“It’s here?” Dean asked, already making for the duffel on the other side of the room.

“It will be,” Deborah said. “It always comes back here.”

“ _Knew it,”_ Number Two hissed in Dean’s ear, and Dean waved them off.

“Did anyone sin tonight?” Dean asked, looking at Number Three, and she shrank into herself. “So, how will we know? He gonna knock on the front door, or – “ The inhuman scream from outside cut him off, and the beating of wings from just outside. Sam and Dean rushed over to either side of Mrs. Leeds and looked out into the night.

The Jersey Devil was an ugly, _ugly_ thing, easily one of the ugliest monsters Sam or Dean had ever seen – truly a face only a mother could love, and even then that apparently wasn’t promised. It was just like the pictures with its hooved chicken legs and bat-like wings, bulging eyes and…snot. Deborah thought to herself that it had grown since the last time she saw him on the night she bore him, but of course he had, it had been three-hundred years. One glance at its mother and the monster let out another horrendous howl that echoed through the night and lashed out with its claws, tearing through the rotting wood and bursting through the wall and into the front room. 

“Shit!” Dean cried. There were too many people in here, and if that ceiling fell, they were absolutely fucked. 

Candles were snuffed out and flying off the walls, Number One kept his camera rolling, and the creature made its way towards its mother. Deborah backed away, screeching – an unholy sound – seeming to not remember that she was already dead and could not be killed again. Number Two and Number Three were screaming – guess it wasn’t so great to see the thing after all. But they shouldn’t have worried – this time, the monster only had eyes for Deborah. 

Sam made a dash for the duffel over in the corner and reached in to pull out one of the shotguns, but just as he turned to take aim, a gunshot rang out.

Number Four had the shotgun Dean had handed him pointed right at the Jersey Devil, and there was a bullet wound in his torso. Thick, dark crimson – nearly black – blood oozed lazily from the wound as the demon tottered from side to side, and then everyone backed up against the wall as it collapsed onto the floor, shaking the foundations.

It was over just as soon as it began. The Devil Hunters had gotten plenty of footage on their movement-tracking cameras, but the Jersey Devil’s body now lay cold and still. Everyone waited for it to move, to just pop back up, but it didn’t.

It was dead. Just like that.

Deborah put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my Lord. Did you…is that – “

“That’s your baby, Deborah,” Sam said, not quite knowing why he said it that way. “That’s your child.”

Deborah kept her hand over her mouth as she silently started to sob. Number Four lowered the gun, the sound of the gunshot still reverberating around the old house. The body of the Jersey Devil lay still and stiff; in the background, a camera clicked. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Number Four whimpered. “I didn’t…I got scared, and she was screaming...it’s the thing that killed her!”

Sam patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay…uh…”

“Justin,” Number Four said numbly.

“It’s okay, Justin.”

Deborah stood between Earl and Dean, looking down at the poor, dead creature. Had he recognized her? Did he know she was his mother? Deborah remembered how he had looked before he had changed into this…thing. Baby Boy Leeds had soft, dark hair, ten fingers and toes, and bright eyes. Everyone had agreed he had been a sweet thing before…well, before.

“I never named him,” Deborah whispered, regret laced in words. “It becomes difficult after so many children. A part didn’t want to give him a name because _all_ of me didn’t want _him_.”

She continued to stare. Everyone in the room stood there, silent, waiting for her to say more.

“I didn’t mean for this,” she went on. “I swear it.”

“We know, Deborah,” Dean said. 

“Deborah, can we help you somehow?” Earl asked gently. “Is there anything we can do for you?”

They didn’t have to ask. There were plenty tried and true ways of sending someone on to the afterlife, and frankly, Dean already had his thumb on his Zippo. But ghosts were people once; if there was any way they could help Deborah Leeds, they were going to do it. She had already lived a miserable enough life in this miserable house and died her miserable death; the least they could do was let her have a say in how she wanted her afterlife to go.

Deborah slowly knelt besides the monster. Yes – this was her son. There was no more running from that. It had died quickly, and with its eyes open, its dead grey eyes looking back at hers. It was disgusting; she hadn’t been able to get a very good look at it before it killed her, but now she could see him better. The skin was leathery, its eyes and muzzle were wet and dripping, and it smelled…awful. It was demonic. 

_This child will be the Devil._

But he wasn’t; he most truly wasn’t. 

“What does he look like to you?”

Dean curled his lip. “Well, Deborah, I’m sorry to say, but he looks like a monster.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she breathed. “I never even gave him a name. He needs one.” She met each set of eyes and smiled softly. “Help me choose a name for him.”

This was a most unusual request. If it made her happy, though, then they were more than happy to help – and if it didn’t work and she didn’t move on, they would torch the house. No big deal. 

“I happen to think Warren’s a good name.”

Earl shook his head. “Warren that _is_ your name. Don’t listen to him, Deborah.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind if I named him after one of you,” she said. “You’ve all been much kinder to me than most people were when I was alive. If you could tell me what they were, I could – “

She stopped. Deborah trained her eyes on Number Four – well, Justin. The kid looked up at Sam with wide eyes, and Sam just gave him a reassuring squeeze to the shoulder as Deborah came to set her pale form in front of them. “You,” she whispered. “Tell me what your name is.”

Justin looked at her, puzzled. “I don’t understand. I killed him.”

Deborah nodded. “I know. Still, I want you to tell me what it is.”

Justin could only stammer, so Sam stepped in. “Justin. His name is Justin.”

The spirit pulled a face; clearly, that hadn’t been what she was hoping to hear, and frankly, Justin was a little hurt by that. “Oh,” she breathed. “I cannot say he really…looks like a… _Justin_.”

“D’you have a middle name?” Dean asked, not wanting this to drag on all night. They could end up throwing around names for hours, especially considering this woman hadn’t named her child in the nearly three-hundred years she was dead – talk about indecisive.

“Uh – Isaac.”

“Isaac,” Deborah repeated, turning away from him and looking back at her dead child. “Son of Abraham…father of the Israelites. Isaac means ‘he will laugh’, because that’s what Abraham and Sarah did when they learned they had conceived a child.”

That was not what Deborah or Japhet had done. Maybe the first time, maybe the second and third, but her poor thirteenth child had only brought her agony. No laughter, no joy, just death.

It was perfect.

“Isaac Leeds,” she breathed. Deborah went back to the body and once again knelt down beside it, this time putting a ghostly hand to its face. _He_ will laugh? No – _she_ will laugh. “Isn’t it a wonderful name?”

Nobody said anything at first. The Winchesters, the Devil Hunters, and the Budget Ghostbusters all just stared at each other, but then Earl started nodding his head enthusiastically. “I think it’s perfect, Mrs. Leeds. Don’t you guys think Isaac Leeds is a perfect name?”

“Definitely,” Sam smiled at Deborah. “It’s really, _really_ perfect, Deborah.”

“I think he looks just like an Isaac,” Dean snarked, and Warren popped him in the shoulder.

“Oh, Isaac,” Deborah breathed, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “I am so sorry for what I did to you. After all, a child’s fate lies in the hands of its mother. I cursed you to fail, and for that I am sorry.”

Then, just as when she entered, Deborah seemed to start to glow from within. This time, however, the monster – the Jersey Devil, Isaac, what have you – started to glow with her, and the room held its collective breath as the body of the creature transformed into a child in the arms of its mother, with soft, dark hair, ten fingers and toes, and bright eyes. 

Deborah smiled down at baby Isaac in her arms, and then they were gone.

xXx

Everything looks better in the morning. 

The morning after Deborah Leeds and her son’s spirits were set free was no different. The autumn sun started rising bright on the horizon, all trace of any rain from the night before gone, its light cutting through the crisp morning air. As Dean helped the Devil Hunters tear down inside and get everything into the Impala and Earl’s trunk, Sam sat on the old stone fence and watched the sun rise through the Pine Barrens, breathing in as deeply as he could. Something like last night would take some time to come down off of, and he had convinced himself there was something in the cool air that would help with that.

“Hey.”

Earl sidled up beside him and sat down. Sam said, “Hey,” back.

“So we were all sorta right, I suppose.”

Sam chuckled. “It’s one for the books, that’s for sure.” The relationship between mothers and their sons…it was complicated across all times. He took a beat, trying to think of how exactly to put what he was about to say next. “You know…most of the time, the cases Dean and I take…you’re right. People die. Or they’re already dead – recently, I mean, because of the thing we’re hunting. We burn bones, shoot wolves, chop off vamp heads…there’s always blood. Every time.”

Earl nodded. He understood. He had never done those things, but he understood. Over the years, he’d had enough encounters with hunters who needed his help that he knew at least vaguely what Sam was talking about and what he and Dean had seen and been through. 

“There’s a lot more out there than you’d think,” Sam said, almost too soft for Earl to hear. “A lot.”

Earl nodded slowly. “I believe it. I mean – ‘course I believe it. It’s not just the ghosts, either. Hell, after last night…” He shrugged, staring off into the distance, watching the sun start to peek over the horizon. “Well, if I had any doubts before, they’re certainly gone now.”

For a moment there, Sam wanted to tell Earl how he was different like him, too, had always been, and not just because of the hunting. Because of something deep inside of them. The way the Leeds family had been touched by the supernatural, so had he and Earl. Special children, mediums, a doomed baby gone rogue…it wasn’t the life they had asked for, but it was the life they got. Earl had clearly made peace with that a long time ago. Sam hadn’t known – really, truly known – that there was anything different about him until he was twenty-two years old, but Earl had known since he was twelve; Deborah Leeds’ baby had been screwed from the start, just like Sam had been.

Deborah Leeds’ baby was dead now. He could finally rest after two-hundred-and-fifty-three years.

But guys like Sam and Earl, Dean and Warren, Cas and Larry…they were still here. At least for now.

“Devil Hunters have pulled out. Told ‘em in no uncertain terms that if they release any film from last night, the five of us better not appear in it. But they’re doin’ okay,” Dean said as he and the rest of Earl’s trio joined him and Sam. He had a sorta funny look on his face. “They don’t seem too sure of themselves right now.”

“Well, they found their Holy Grail,” Larry said. “Not only found it, but killed it, too. Not surprised they have no idea what comes next for them.”

The five of them digested that for a second. The Devil Hunters weren’t like Sam and Dean – they had lives outside of hunting, like The Budget Ghostbusters. But it would be hard to see the thing you had searched for in the flesh and then watch it die all in one night. What do you do when the cause you’re devoted to is just suddenly…gone?

Sam noticed Dean was watching him pretty closely. He raised an eyebrow in question; Dean gave a little shrug and nodded his head towards their casemates. Sam – as always – got the message. “You know, you guys really know your stuff. Certainly a different approach than we’re used to, but…effective.”

“Thanks,” Larry said, looking pleased. It was sweet; the longer Sam and Dean spent with them, the more it became clear that these guys weren’t nearly as gruff as you would think just looking at them. No one that mean smiled the way Larry was right now.

“If you guys wanted, we could work together again sometime, maybe,” Dean offered. “We know a ton of other hunters, newbies who could use some backup and a milk run to get their sea legs.”

“And we sorta have access to a huge store of lore books, if you need it.”

The Budget Ghostbusters looked at each other. They spoke to each other in much the same way Sam and Dean did: telepathically. “Well, y’all gotta keep in mind this isn’t our full-time job,” Larry said. “But we’ll think about it.”

That was a nice way of saying _probably not_ , but Sam was still glad they offered. “Well, the offer still stands.”

“I get it, though,” Dean shrugged. “You’ve got your ways, and if you can keep one foot in the real world, good for you. Like Sam said, your approach certainly seems to work for you – why mess with it?”

Earl and his buddies nodded. “That’s for sure. My grandmother, for as fucking crazy as she was, taught me that ghosts were just people who had died. There was no reason to pretend they aren’t here, ya know? So we talk to them. And if they need to move on…well, we’ve got ways of doin’ that, too.”

“Like last night,” Warren said. “Sometimes it gets kinda dicey, but most times…well, it’s just nice to help ‘em out.” That was the first time in the entire short time Sam and Dean had known Warren that he didn’t sound like a snarky asshole. It was sort of nice.

But Dean didn’t want to dwell on any sickly-sweetness. It was not the way of men their age (well – maybe Sam. He was a millennial.) “Ya know, we know Earl’s a medium, but we didn’t hear how the two of you got into this,” he said, gesturing to Larry and Warren. “What’s the story there?”

It was a long one for sure, one they didn’t have time to get into here. “If y’all aren’t in a rush, we usually like to come down after these with breakfast slams. If you wanna tag along, maybe we’ll fill you in,” Warren offered.

Dean looked to Sam. He wasn’t ready to go home to the bunker yet. Sam could be okay with that for now. “Sounds like a plan to me,” Sam said. He grinned at Warren. “Lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be sure to check out all the other stories and art done for this amazing bang [here](https://spneldritchbang.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Thanks for reading, stay safe, and have a great rest of your spooky season!


End file.
